Greenwich Historical Society plans a mysterious weekend

Christina Hennessy, Staff Writer

Published 5:30 pm, Thursday, January 5, 2012

Photo: Amy Mortensen

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The Greenwich Historical Society will be hosting a â€œJunior Detective Dayâ€ program Sunday, Jan. 8, from 1 to 4 p.m., in conjunction with its Everyday Heroes exhibition. Young people will be invited to test their deductive skills through a series of exercises. Although this is a drop-in program, reservations are required and there is a fee ($10 members, $15 nonmembers). For information, call call 203-869-6899, Ext. 10.Â less

The Greenwich Historical Society will be hosting a â€œJunior Detective Dayâ€ program Sunday, Jan. 8, from 1 to 4 p.m., in conjunction with its Everyday Heroes exhibition. Young people will be invited ... more

Photo: Amy Mortensen

Greenwich Historical Society plans a mysterious weekend

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Young detectives have the chance to crack a troubling case this weekend -- who stole a valuable letter and then covered his or her tracks with a forgery?

On Sunday, Jan. 8, aspiring sleuths will want to make their way to the Greenwich Historical Society, where they will employ techniques such as chromatography and fingerprinting to determine the culprit.

The Junior Detective Day program is being run in conjunction with the society's ongoing exhibit, "Everyday Heroes," which looks at the role of Greenwich's first responders (fire, police and emergency service workers) through history. Young participants will be encouraged to visit different stations in the society's Vanderbilt Education Center.

"For each station, there will be a clue," said Jaime Villaneda, the society's director of education.

The detectives will be assessing the guilt of four possible suspects, one of whom has taken a valuable letter from the exhibition and replaced it with a forgery.

"This is more like a low-tech science project," he said, which will have the children testing out such procedures as the aforementioned chromatography, which shows how different compounds disperse in water.

"They also will learn how to make modern paper look really old," Villaneda said.

The program is part of an overall effort to program family-oriented events every second Sunday of the month.

Reservations are required, but families are encouraged to drop in any time during the program.

"We wanted to have a program where families could spend time together ... and interact with one another," Villaneda said.

The program is geared toward younger children, but Villaneda said all ages will enjoy it. The exhibition, which runs through Aug. 26, also will be open, so that families can learn a little bit more about the real, everyday heroes who solve crime cases, protect property and save lives.

Student volunteers will assist Villaneda in running the three-hour program.